Fear
by Halibel Lecter
Summary: At the end of the day, it's important to remember that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.


Fear [from The Haunting in Connecticut]

Note:  
This story is based very loosely on the recent horror film The Haunting in Connecticut. If you've seen the movie, note that it is in no way a "fanfic" for that movie, but uses it heavily as inspiration all the same. The names of characters have been used, and their appearances, but their dynamics are all screwy if you go by canon. For all intents and purposes this is just a story. I made no money from this story, nor am I affiliated with the movie's company/sponsors in any way.

Thanks to Rooster455 for beta-ing~!

00

Black.

All she could see for ever and ever, endless, foreboding black shadow. All around. Forever.

"Damn it," Jonah muttered around the flashlight in her mouth. "I'm gonna kill someone for this…"

If, that is, she could get out.

Currently, Seven-Twenty Paranormal's resident demonologist was stuck in a tiny, inexplicably winding tunnel through gap after gap in the slats that supported the second-story floorboards of an old house. Her long-sleeve shirt was tucked into long jeans, which were tucked into her socks, the sleeves themselves covered partly by long gloves to keep her bare skin out of contact with the wood above and below and the slats to each side. She was sweating in the summer heat but it was better than getting in over her head when she had no good way to get out in a hurry.

Normally it wouldn't be worth all this investigating. However, the crawlspace had provided the family with objects dropped seemingly from the heavens. Small, very old coins, slips of aged paper, tiny bits of jewelry that were too odd to be any replica. It was beyond "worth investigating" to possibly being a pivot point of their investigation of the house, and as usual, Jonah had been the first person to unwittingly walk into the room when they'd been discussing who the task should fall to.

No that she minded. But they could have sent Matt… they could have sent the Reverend if he'd wanted… heck, Aickman could have fit into this crawlspace easily. The other members of the team had insisted though, so she'd grabbed a flashlight and some covering clothes.

Sigh.

Slowly, the crawlspace narrowed until Jonah had to turn onto her side and kick her legs to move forward. She sighed and tilted her head back and then forward, wincing and stifling a curse when her forehead hit something hard and metallic. She spit out the flashlight and slowly worked one hand up to grab it.

"Ouch, damn it. The one time I find something—ah well. Hmm…"

She wriggled forward to the end of the space, and satisfied that it was empty, jerked three short kicks into the line around one ankle. Three short, sharp tugs replied, and she kicked again to let them know that she was serious. The rope tightened and she slid backwards, slowly enough to grab the box's handle in her teeth and crane her neck back to guide it into the space with her until she could flip onto her stomach and hold the box in both hands.

"Okay, bend your knees."

"…Huh?"

Above her, Matt's voice was a muffled but exasperated tenor that had trouble coming clear through the floorboards. "I need you to bend your knees so we can pull you out. Hey, have you got room to turn over?"

"I… yeah…hold on a second." She sighed and flipped over onto her back, threading her legs through the small hole in the floorboards and angling her hips up a bit. Strong, warm hands grabbed her forelegs and pulled, and soon she was twisting out of the hole with her head tipped back, drawing her arms out behind her and kneeling for the box. The clunk of metal on wood was drowned out by her own rustle of clothing as she stood and brushed herself off, dust flying. Matt coughed and glared at her.

"Hey, go do that somewhere else!"

"Bah. Puppy."

"I take it someone's been watching Crisis Core again…"

Jonah rolled her eyes. "Yeah right. You bear no worthy resemblance—"

"So, did we find anything of value?" Popescu stood at the top of the attic staircase, blinking and tilting his hat back on his head. "Familiar items to the family, maybe, bones, ashes…" He shot a glance at Jonah. "Boxes of eyelids, maybe?"

"Shut it. You know I work prebound…"

"Oh, of course. Far be it from you to do your _own _binding," he said dryly, walking over and kneeling beside Matt to go through the box. "Hmm. We need more light, and a better place to look these things over…let's go down to th—"

Just as he spoke, though, the door slammed shut. Matt yelled somewhere in the darkness as the lights flickered out, and Jonah yelped as warm glass brushed her hand—the flashlight had blown. She tried it anyway, foolishly, and the filament glowed for a moment before snapping in two like an old guitar string.

At first there was total and endless dark silence: nothing moved, nothing breathed.

"Okay," Gibbs finally said, "Matt. Take the box and give it to me."

"Okay…" there was a shuffling and a grunt of lifting something heavy. Matt reached out his hand into the darkness. "What have I got?"

"My tie. Let go."

"But it feels like your shirt sleeve…"

"Wait, hold on. We need skin-to-skin. Who knows who has my tie and who knows whose shirt sleeve you're holding," he said, exasperated. "Okay, have I got your face?"

"Er, no."

Jonah sighed and stumbled toward the door, tripping over something soft and falling. Uneven fingers ran down her spine with a deep chill, and heavy, labored breathing echoed above her. She wouldn't remember much later except adrenaline flooding her system and blood flowing slowly into her mouth as she bit her tongue to keep her weak gag reflex at bay, struggling and flailing against the distinct scent. Hands pinned her by the stomach, pressing deep, leaving bruises. Claws dug through the knit of her shirt and, when they tried to pull back, got stuck.

An angry exhalation of breath and a rattling, choking sound. Jonah squirmed and fingers clawed her. She brought one leg up and tried to pull away…

Blood. Pain.

Hot, stabbing claws pressing into her and stagnant breath on her cold skin. She'd had worse, seen worse, and probably would still, but this feeling of being helpless…

By now Jonah knew, and well at that, that a human's place in any circle that includes the nonphysical is… less than high. Low, in fact. Aside from a word of power that was usually only good once, a cross in some situations, or in her case, an insane amount of good luck, humans had a lot to fear from what lay beyond, and the closer a human placed themselves to that line… well, it was obvious.

Becoming any sort of affiliate with that world was just like taking hold of a grenade with a loose pin. As a necromancer, every spirit she called to her aid was a chance for something to go wrong and every foreboding room she walked into had the potential to be a trap…

This was how she lived and for a split second of pure, unbridled panic, she wondered if this was how she would die too. Channeling (a fool's move anyway) or even simply calling for aid would do nothing if these were the spirits of the house. They obviously didn't want to negotiate. Jonah refused to bind spirits to her beck and call, and as a result her repertoire was limited to the souls around her.

Normally, this was not a problem.

But at the moment…

_"The Lord is my Shepherd—I shall not want!"_

She jerked her head up at the Reverend's loud, rough voice. He'd scared her half—nevermind. The important thing was that he was talking. She gulped down the cold lump in her throat and, voice faltering, followed suit.

_"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside still waters …!"_

Far to her left and front, as the pressure decreased, Matt's voice was muffled by something thick and obviously repulsive from the hesitant tone of speaking through it, but in her terror his voice was as loud as a gunshot and she could hear him loud and clear.

_"He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake!"_

_"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."_ Popescu sighed as the lights flickered on. Jonah gasped in a breath and cleared the motionless bones from her lap. They seemed to have risen right out of the floor—buried in the insulation maybe? Or had they even been between the floorboards?

_"You spreadeth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runneth over,"_ the Reverend said loudly into the silence. Jonah and Matt gave each other a look across the room—a mix of relief and astonishment and calm exasperation at Gibbs, though they knew he'd saved them both—before joining in, matching the rise and fall of his voice.  
_  
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." _With that, Popescu nodded slowly and crossed himself.

"Amen."

"Amen."

"Amen."

"Now, we have a box to examine," Matt said, hefting the metal box onto his shoulder. "I hope it hasn't turned to dust…"

"Does it feel like dust?"

"Nah. Irregular… and too dang heavy."

"Bah. Puppy."

Matt grumbled and handed the box to her. "Go on, then, take it if you want it so bad. Careful on the stairs, alright?" He opened the door for Jonah and she nodded slightly over the large, cumbersome box under her chin and walked slowly down the stairs, heels hitting the warped wooden boards in an even rhythm.

Further down in the kitchen, the family gathered around the crew of Seven-Twenty, leaning far over to try and get a look at the contents of the box. There wasn't much… a few handkerchiefs, one stained in a blackish substance that looked dramatic but was probably just ink. There were some old photographs of a family out in front of the house, a few pictures (oddly taken with screwy angles) of the staircase, kitchen, and one of the bedrooms, as well as the old basement entrance that was now a closet.

There wasn't much about the pictures besides that odd feeling to the latter group, though, so they were set aside for later. As the family gawked and pawed through the unimportant stuff, matching up sets of earrings, speculating on monograms, Jonah leaned away from the table and watched silently, never touching the things within the box.

This wasn't good.

That single fraction of a second of even entertaining the thought that she could be killed here had made this a lot more dangerous, and as she watched the box's items laid out in neat order, her nervousness only grew.

Some things were normal, some things were average. But toward the bottom of the box were some tiny, delicate looking instruments, their ivory handles dyed a spookily uneven dark brown. They looked much like things you'd find at a dental office, but the tricks of their use were known to only two people in the room.

"Here," Aickman said, handing over a small tool used for spreading the nostrils so shaping tubes could be inserted. "Pretty good condition, if you don't count the rust on the metal."

Jonah nodded weakly and turned it over between her fingertips, analyzing the handle. It had nothing scratched into it, which was odd for such fine ivory. Usually there was, at the least, an initial engraved in delicate font, or a name scrawled in with the tip of a knife. Maybe this person had been new to the trade, or maybe they'd been old and had ceased to care about getting their tools engraved.

"...Sir? What's that for?"

Aickman glanced over the happy young couple, smiling, wearing young peoples' T-shirts and jeans. He noted the wife's cross necklace and shrugged. Why hide the truth from these? He began to explain, starting with the instrument in Jonah's hands and picking up others as he moved through the embalming process. The couple seemed fascinated.

At least he was having fun…

"Doctor" Aickman was the oldest member of the team, the leader and the boss. He wore a crazy beard and round Coke-bottle glasses when, shaved and in a better prescription [since he wasn't that near-sighted anyway], he might have looked ten or even twenty years younger. His true age had never been, probably never would be called into question, because nobody really wanted to know how wrong they were.

Besides that he acted as the ringmaster when they decided to spice things up a bit. He called forth yon spirits and spoke easily with the dead, with a medium at his side to channel for him, a demonologist at his other hand to spot for him, and a Reverend at his back, willing to jump in front of him and shield. Nobody really minded. They all knew that, at the end of the day, they had their even if different roles.

Besides, Matt rarely channeled anything except his own inner horror buff, the practice having been left for the crazy or stupid to try years ago. The Reverend was always on the job and Aickman was always in-character. Jonah, last but not least, got most of the collateral damage and most of the odd looks from the family as well. She certainly didn't look like a worthy demonologist, and if they looked past that to her being the team's necromancer and ex officio executive in charge of combat, well… there was a reason they didn't, and that reason was directly tied to how many calls the company received.

But hopefully, hopefully, there was some mistake. Hopefully this had not been the residence of the owner of these tools, or if the residence, maybe not the place of business… please God, no. She couldn't take it after that. She couldn't take walking into that darkness again, couldn't take the feeling of those claws… she couldn't sit down at the table in the dining room, link hands and shove her bare feet under the carpet line to touch the plywood beneath, connect with those spirits…

No. Not happening.

"You okay?" Matt leaned over when they were alone with the group, the family having left the room to talk. "You look kind of pale. Are you sick?"

"N-No." Damn it, there went her voice. Good thing Matt was the only one listening. Jonah bit down hard on her lip, sighing heavily through clenched teeth. "I'm fine," she muttered, forcing her voice steady. "It's nothing. No problem."

Matt drew back, bluish gray eyes narrowing in wounded curiosity. "Jonah…"

"It's nothing, okay? Nothing's wrong. Just a little rattled is all… I'll be fine in a second once the adrenaline dissipates, you know me." She shrugged and, for good measure, stood up and stretched, her short brownish black hair swinging down when she tilted her head. She glanced up and met his eyes, light denim blue to cool slate. "Have you heard anything about what we're going with for a plan of action?"

"Nah. I'd say we're cleansing though… Gibbs is talking to Aickman at the earliest opportunity about what happened in that attic and we'll probably do a séance to figure out what we're dealing with. You know. The usual." He leaned back against the kitchen counter. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Mother hen," Jonah muttered under her breath, but she couldn't stop drumming the table with her fingertips either. Being nervous is always bad because it denotes that you have something to be nervous _about_. The fact that normally fearless, if intermittently cautious Jonah was actually considering the moment when she'd back out of tonight's activities was shameful even from her point of view. They needed every member of the team to function correctly, and her backing out…

It was shameful, and she knew it was, but they couldn't force her on pain of death to connect with this house. This volatile, unpredictable, violent old house that made her feel so helpless, the one emotion that could instill real fear anymore.

Revulsion and shock had long become normal, and they no longer gave true fear, though there was still that rush of adrenaline. But no matter how awful something looked or how suddenly it appeared, it had little power based just on that to make her afraid.

But this, this thing in the dark… things in the dark, she supposed. Plural. The spirits of this house were very different. They were capable of striking without warning, a—

Black.

She gasped as the claws dug back into her sides, struggling, kicking. Somehow she was back in the attic, in the pitch-darkness, and that thing was on her again…

Its hands pressed her sore stomach and she arched away, kicking.

Its breath touched her forehead and she lashed out, scratching blindly.

Its voice broke the silence and she screamed as the sound slowly morphed into recognition…

"—nah. Jonah! Wake up!! Open your eyes!"

"What…?"

She was lying on the floor in a heap, sides heaving under Matt's hands. He'd been screaming in her ear to be heard over her own wailing, and as the family filed in she climbed to her feet, ashamed.

"What's goin' on in here?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, and when Matt covered his face in one open palm with a loud smack she twitched. "Just some leg cramps. I, uh, have low iron sometimes. No problem, go on your way. Nothing to see here."

The family filed back out. Matt glared at hear over the table.

"What?!"

"You're afraid."

Jonah felt anger, automatically, rise beneath her sternum and straighten her back. "I am not." Though they both knew she was lying, and for no good reason it seemed. They were all fine. The wounds, like most wounds dealt by the nonphysical, had vanished quickly, and it certainly wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.

Definitely not.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Matt reminded her, and she was reminded of his first weeks with the team… always afraid, easily goaded or startled. Not the best choice for a medium, he'd been skittish for a long time. It was why they rarely ever had him channel or used him as anchor in seances, and her relative easygoing nature was why that responsibility, almost without fail, fell to Jonah.

She'd reminded him of the same fact before, and he was probably unaware of how much the words stung… his mantra that she'd laughed at every so often, once in a blue moon. The words of a 'fraidy cat or coward, reminding himself verbally of what he should know on a deep, wordless level.

Weak.

She allowed the heat of anger to melt a little of the icy fear in her chest, hoping that maybe she could convince herself not to be afraid. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The only…

Her vision flashed black again and the surge of deep, cold fear like northern water made her choke for a second. That was when she realized… fear. They fed on fear. These creatures of the darkness were no mere trapped spirits. They were belligerent, malevolent things that took pleasure from seeing living eyes wide in terror…

She forced herself to be calm and take her seat at the table a few hours later, near midnight. She would see what they wanted her to see, she would feel what they wanted her to feel, maybe hear what they wanted her to hear.

Blackness closed over her eyes and she felt a distinct heat in her stomach. The weak gag reflex that kept her from aspirating the ectoplasm that she manifested sometimes was a double-edged sword, and it meant that she had to work to keep everything down. She tightened her right hand, and Matt squeezed back, more reassuring than anything. Aickman had her other hand so tensing there was useless and a weak gesture this early in.

Wails and moans, heavy, rattling breathing through decomposed lungs. The scent of rotting flesh and stagnant blood. Hands trailing along her arms, tangling in her hair. Blackness in front of her eyes—she closed them, calm. Claws piercing her sides and pain that blazed up her frame like dull fire.

She opened her eyes a little and the light was back in the room, the cameras were running between each person's seat. Malformed shapes danced slowly in a jerking, halting waltz around the table in a grotesque moving parody of their séance.

One figure had a hemangioma birthmark that extended over its whole face—the body was too swollen and deformed to tell gender—and as a result the lips were warped two winches wide and a dark, engorged purple. Another came forward from the circle and laid its cheek against hers, a normally calm and friendly gesture among the living… but when it pulled away there was a sticky black and white splotch.

She glanced across at Matt, his eyes wide and flickering in horror as a rotten foot crowned his head, dripping awful smelling fluid. It would have been funny were it not for the scent and for his pale face. Poor Matt—she knew he wasn't suited for this, and wondered briefly why he didn't keep his eyes shut like the rest, before it hit her: Solidarity.

That little idiot…

Helplessness could no longer be achieved. Helplessness was a one-trick pony and once she could resist, there would be no problem. She slowly drew the spirits onto herself, off the house, and stood from the circle, walked outside. She opened her fisted hands and the connections broke all at once. She hit her knees and coughed, blocking the pain of the ectoplasm's high-energy clawing motion as it dragged itself up out of her throat. No worse than a usual séance, she made herself think. That wasn't so bad.

"Wasn't so bad?" Matt asked, handing her a glass of water. Jonah nodded silently and swallowed enough to wash the blood from her mouth before speaking.

"Wasn't so bad…"

"Good, then we can go home."

She nodded and filed into the van with the rest of the team. The family should be back from their hotel after sunrise tomorrow, so they wouldn't know a thing about the burning, writhing mass on the lawn. Even though its volatile nature could cause burns, there was always the chance that it would leave the grass alone or that the couple wouldn't notice.

As the van drove away from the building she lived in, Jonah sighed and trudged up the steps, through the lobby to the elevator. She rode up to her floor, stumbled into her apartment, stripped all her clothes off and crawled into bed, coughing slightly. When red spotted the pillow she groaned, but it was nothing unusual. She just needed to sleep.

As she lay on her back waiting for sleep to take her, claws dug into her sides and the weightless feeling of dreaming was offset by heavy, rough hands on her neck, choking her. She gasped and writhed in a nightmarish slow, jerking motion like a half-remembered dance, as a single emotion flooded the choking blackness like icy water and silenced her screams—

Fear.


End file.
